Re: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

[fbocch2595@xxxxxxx]

Supporting all the new pc's now becomes an issue.  
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Dalton <ldalton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion' <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 11:44:43 -0600
Subject: RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps


It's been years since I priced a dumb terminal.  Just out of curiosity, what
do they go for these days? If you can get a good basic PC for under $400, I
can't imagine why you'd want to spend more than that on a dumb terminal.



-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces+ldalton=turbogorilla-software.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces+ldalton=turbogorilla-software.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Booth Martin
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 11:41 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

Two factors I have seen that prohibit PCs on the production floor are:

1) A hostile environment.  This includes air quality, temperature 
controls, near-by moving objects from fork lifts to thrown packages, and 
workers with no love for the company or its property.

2) Lost production while people use the PCs to play games, do personal 
stuff, and spend company time to make a case for an Internet connection 
so they can download porn, music, and surf to e Bay.

Until that changes, I can not see durable and cheap terminals 
disappearing. In fact, I would expect the direction to be toward more 
text-based stuff with bar code readers, RF ID, and all sorts of hand 
held devices.

Chuck Lewis wrote:
> Joe,
> 
> No offense to you but my last job was at a very large manufacturing
company
> and I am now at a distribution company. In both places there are terminals
> in heavy use and that is NOT going to be changing anytime soon. There are
> areas that simply do not need PC's and what it would take to keep one
> running in those areas if they were needed would be basically cost
> prohibitive.
> 
> Chuck
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 7:50 PM
> To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
> Subject: RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps
> 
> 
>>From: Jones, John (US)
>>
>>Except that IBM never marketed it as $300K off the price if you don't
>>want 5250.  Instead they said 5250 will cost you $300K.  So it is not a
>>discount for not having 5250; it is a fee for having it.
> 
> 
> IBM never marketed it in any way.  But the fact is that every year
> processors with the same or greater power were cheaper, sometimes
> significantly cheaper.  It's just that the enterprise machines were
cheaper
> by a lesser amount.
> 
> 
> 
>>The problem is that IBM took something that was built-in and thus
>>considered by the customer base to be 'free' and made it an option.
> 
> 
> I personally find this practice reprehensible, but it's become standard in
> corporate America.  Give it away free until they need it and then charge
for
> it.  At least in this instance IBM has been clearly stating for YEARS that
> you need to get off the 5250.
> 
>  
> 
>>An
>>expensive option.  Yes, they lowered the purchase price of the base
>>server so that it was initially something of a wash, but over time the
>>cost of 5250 has become an increasingly higher percentage of the overall
>>cost of a system.
> 
> 
> Actually, that's not quite true.  In the initial days when there were many
> tiers of interactive CPW, the 100% interactive machines were sometimes
four
> times the cost of the zero CPW version.  Nowadays, there are only two
> versions: with and without.
> 
> 
> 
>>Believe me, I like the platform as much as anyone on this list, but it
>>becomes increasingly difficult to sell management on the cost of
>>upgrades.  Things like the charge for Enterprise Edition will kill the
>>iSeries at my shop.  It is only a matter of time.
> 
> 
> You could move to the browser.  Do you have source?  My product would pay
> for itself many times over by giving you a nearly identical look and feel
on
> a much smaller machine.
> 
> 
> Joe
> 
>